Gehangene in de smidse 1880

Felicien Rops made this small print, "Gehangene in de smidse," using etching, a process dependent on the dark alchemy of acid and metal. The controlled corrosion of the plate allows the artist to create lines with tremendous tonal variation, describing the figure of a woman in an industrial setting. It seems a stark comment on labour. The figure is androgynous, dressed in heavy fabrics, and might be read as an allegory of women and labour. But it is the etching process itself that adds meaning, and that would have been familiar to Rops’s original audience. Its labor-intensive, repetitive character mirrors the industrial scene it depicts. The artist uses the etching needle to create marks that translate to a range of tones, from light gray to nearly solid black, but he then harnesses a corrosive material to do the rest of the work. It is this act of harnessing a material to do some of the labor for him that ties the work so tightly to its themes.